Istanbul Day 3- OMD on the Road

Good Morning Istanbul

I started yesterday with sunset from the terrace at the Rast Hotel where I am staying in Istanbul so I thought I would start today with sunrise (or nearly, I overslept a little). What a view, I could spend all day lounging about up there, but I didn't :)

I wandered the streets a little today but in all honesty I think the jet lag and overnight flight from Singapore is catching up so I decided to take it easier and have a more relaxed day. Having said that, I still came across some really nice people like this guy at Beyazit Square. When I asked if I could shoot his ringed hand and cane for a detail shot he promptly assumed I wanted a fully posed portrait and stood to attention. Not really what I wanted but I think the shot works because of the tight crop and the glance from the old man on the right. A quick word on the processing of these shots which is probably a bit more colorful and contrasty than my normal style but I felt it suits the vibrant atmosphere of Istanbul, I hope its not overdone as I am hopelessly color blind but it looks nice to my eyes. Out of interest its a very simple piece of Lightroom editing and I am simply adding a bit more presence and vibrance than normal, just about everything else is the same as usual.

I don't think that the above shot is very inspirational but I really liked the way the light was falling on the scene and it looked very rich and saturated, the coins, notes and paraphernalia the guy was selling was also interesting and I spent a very pleasant five minutes or so looking at his wares.

We all love barber shops, the light is usually good and there is always a mirror for that all important reflection. Its a bonus when the barber is waring the favored Turkish red and has a good tatoo into the bargain. This guy was also very tolerant and allowed me to shoot for a while.


The Turkish Wedding


Sometimes you just get lucky, the hotel manager recomended a restaurant to us and when we got there a wedding party was in full swing and the bride and groom very graciously allowed me to shoot a few photos. 

In looking at these shots I think I overdid the noise reduction as they are looking too plastic for my liking, still its too late at night now and I still like the smile anyway. These are very low light shots at ISO 3200 and while usable, it doesn't take much to push them over the edge.

As at the barbers shop, mirrors are your friend. There seems to be a tradition at Turkish weddings that the girls carry a small candle in each hand, not sure why but it made for interesting photography.

Here's the last shot of the day and although the lighting was poor and my exposure was a bit off I had to include it for the sultry look from this beautiful young Turkish lady....oh to be young again.

That's it for day 3 folks, the workshop with Peter begins tomorrow so it will be interesting to see how it progresses and what other delights this fascinating city has in store.


Cheers,


Colin

Istanbul Day 2 - OMD on the Road

Inspirational Istanbul

Hi Folks, and welcome to day two from Istanbul. Well thats not strictly true as I wanted to start with a couple of shots that I took from our hotel balcony last night at dusk, how's this for a view !!! The second shot was at ISO 3200 handheld so I had to give it a bit of noise smoothing in Lightroom, still it has a nice feel to it.

The hotel is called the Rast and is in a fabulous location right in the centre of Sultanahmet in the old city. Before I start on todays shots, now that I am fully rested after the overnight flight from Singapore, I wanted to show a few photos that I took late yesterday afternoon.

Regular readers of the blog will know how fond I am of backlighting and there were many opportunities to take these kinds of shots in the narrow cobbled streets in the old city. If you are trying this, you need around + 1.7 to +2 exposure compensation and shut down the lens as far as possible to help with the starburst effect.

Here is another nice example of a street seller who appeared towards dusk at Beyazit Square near the university. This is a very interesting spot that I visited a few times during the day and it seemed to change very time I went. I took a few shots of him before he got fed up with me and I can't make up my mind which I prefer, I like the feel and action of the first but can see his face and expression in the second.

Here is another backlit streetshot that I like a lot, the rim lighting is just right and as an added bonus I have another model in red in the top left of the frame, this wasn't intentional but I think it improves the photo immeasurably. Ok, Here is the last shot from Yesterday afternoon and its a cigarette street streetseller. In my enthusiasm I didn't spot that I was reflecting in his machine, never mind, I like the back-lighting and the pose. A quick word about the little Lumix lens, the 14mm F2.5 is a fabulous street lens, its extremely light and compact, reasonably fast, sharp wide open and very flare resistant when shooting these kind of backlit photos. Its become a firm favorite with me and is never off the OMD now.

For today, feeling totally refreshed after a long lie and very nice breakfast. I decided to follow the tram lines done towards the Bosphorus and see where I ended up. I personally love just wandering aimlessly and its amazing what you come accross. I found my way to Sirkecis Train Station and got a few nice natural light shots in the old waiting room area.

I am finding that most Istanbul citizens are pretty good when it comes to taking photos of them and they either ignore you or politely smile and let you get on with it. This was the former :)

You really can't go wrong with nice window lighting and its also hard to go wrong when you get a nice graffiti painted wall, all you have to do is station yourself and wait for the right actors to appear on your stage. I had only settled there for a few minutes when along came this guy in red trousers and i had a polarizer on the Lumix 14 so the result is very nicely saturated.

Galata Bridge


Following a refreshing afternoon nap I decided to try the evening light down at the Galata bridge which spans the Bosphorus and is a hive of activity in the late afternoon. The bridge itself is pretty big and has two levels, the lower of which houses restaurants and bars. With the OMD rigged with my favorite 14 mm lens and the GX1 over my other shoulder with the equally flexible 20mm F1.7 attached I was ready for anything. For some reason I found myself favoring the GX1, 20mm combo this afternoon and I quickly found a fascinating shadow opportunity.

I thought it looked cool to leave my own shadow in the shot it seemed to create a nice tension across the frame. I really liked this location and took a lot of shots trying to find the right subject and it turned out that timing was everything, it proved very tricky trying to anticipate and shoot at the right moment. Something I like about the GX1 like the GF1 before it, I seem to be able to view with my left eye and watch for subjects out of frame with my right rather like rangefinder shooters do.


Here is another shot that I liked of the avid fishermen on the bridge. These guys were really keen and some of them spend all day on the bridge and for some it turns into a kind of family affair.

Just to close, here is what I think is my favorite shot of the day that I took just as the light was going. I really like the feel of this and somehow it creates an 'end of the day' type emotion. This really is a gorgeous setting in the late afternoon and I am really liking the flexibility of the OMD 14mm and GX1 20mm set ups, they cover the perfect range for my style of shooting.

Well thats it for day two folks. I am off for some well earned sleep and have one more day to wander about on my own before the course starts. I am off to bed weary but already filled with anticipation for tomorrow.


Cheers,


Colin

Istanbul Day 1 - OMD on the Road

First Thoughts on Istanbul

Hey fellow photo travelers, welcome to this first post from my trip to Istanbul for a workshop with Peter Turnley . The workshop is street shooting orientated with a photojournalistic theme and I decided to arrive a few days early to acclimatize and get into the spirit. I arrived at the hotel at 9:00 a.m. this morning having flown over night from Singapore and decided to hit the streets immediately. The hotel we are in is right in the centre of Sultanahmet in the old city and I just couldn't wait to explore so I grabbed my Olympus OMD with Lumix 14mm F2.5 and hit the streets. First up, this is a wonderful little travel combo, incredibly light, robust and flexible. I mentioned in previous posts that I am really warming to shooting with the touch shutter on the cameras rear screen and I am convinced this is the way to go with street shooting. I am also finding that its not an intimidating set up and it doesn't get the reaction that the bigger DSLR and lenses would. The opening shot is a good example of this as I was able to engage the subject in conversation while I shot away with the touchscreen, and it worked a treat. 

Although I would class myself as an experienced photographer, the thought of focusing entirely on Street Photography was a little foriegn although fortunately I think it aligned with the way I shoot anyway. Traditionally I use wider lenses of the order of the 24, 28, 35 & 40 focal lengths and I usually try to shoot what I would term 'context' shots so I guess trying to story tell and create interesting little series of shots isn't actually that far from what I do anyway. I watched a tremendous little Magnum in Motion clip by Alex Webb when I was researching for this trip and I was struck by the depth of interest in his photos, the best ones seem to be multilayered with interesting elements that all come together to trap your eye in the frame. Inspired by this I have been trying to keep that in mind when I explore any interesting subjects that I come accross and I think the window shot above is about as close as I have got to it yet.

One thing that is clear to me after my first few hours here is that I think I have the gear choices spot on. As is my way recently, I have gone really light and brought the OMD, GX1 and a few primes including the Lumix 14 & 20, the Sigma 30 and the Olympus 45 (these all of course double for equivalent focal length). In addition I brought the Samyang fisheye thinking it might be useful in the gorgeous mosques. I have started out today with just the OMD and 14 & 20 and they have been perfectly suited to this style. I also bought a very cheap Lowepro Exchange Messenger bag which is ridiculously light and a great compliment to the micro 43 kit, housing it all with ease and, in combination with the tiny lightweight lenses, being no trouble to carry in the city heat.

From what I have seen so far of Istanbul, and please remember I have only been here for a matter of hours, its reputation as a street-shooters paradise looks to be warranted. Every turn of a corner holds something new to see and some variety of light and subject matter. The blend of old and new is certainly there as well and contrasts abound. So far I have only been refused by a couple of subjects and thats fair enough, I think as I adapt and become better at this style, the hit rate of keepers will rise. 

Well, I am starting to tire a little so I am going to grab some coffee and a snack before I shoot in the late afternoon light which should be great. It is also my intention to leave the hotel around 5 a.m. tomorrow to see how the city looks around sunrise so it will be an early one tonight. It is my intention to try to update this every day if I can but not sure how achievable that will be once the course starts and I really get into it. Anyway, in the meantime happy shooting.


Cheers,


Colin

OMD - On the Road

China, Part 1


Hey fellow photo travelers and camera addicts, welcome to the first of a three part set of posts on my first trip to the Fujian coast of Southern China. This first post has two distinct themes; firstly, it focuses on my experiences on the road with the Olympus OMD, which has been very interesting, and secondly I am going to have a look at shooting pattern which is the primary reason to visit this part of China. I have had the OMD for two weeks now but this was the first chance I have had to travel with it to get to know it better in some diverse shooting situations. In some ways this was the perfect trip to try it out on as it poured of rain every day except the first and I got a chance to use it with a variety of lenses from my fave 14mm f2.5 to the 45-200 mm zoom. I also took along the new Sigma 30mm f2.8 and have a few shots and some thoughts on it as a newcomer to the M43 range.


Fujian and Pattern

The Fujian coastline is famous for its shellfish, fishing and seaweed harvesting, and all along the coast there are  intricate layouts of channels and bamboo poles along the beaches and estuaries. Its these channels, sandbanks and poles that create the much sought after patterns and all it takes is the right vantage point, some half decent light and you have hours of interesting shooting on your hands.  This leads me to my first observation on the OMD and that is that I found battery life not to be so great in extended use and I reckon it would take two to three batteries to get me through a full day of travel shooting. Unfortunately I wasn't able to source spares in time for this trip so had to stop shooting on a few occasions when the juice ran out. I don't see the OMD as any worse than similar cameras in this class but I did use the rear screen more than I thought and had several dawn to dusk days of shooting. Just pointing this out and I will be better prepared next time. As ever on a trip like this its always wise to have a back-up, particularly if you are using a small cam system like M43 and I took along a G3 and also a little Fuji F600 P&S.

Like many coastal areas, the weather in Fujian can be unpredictable and unfortunately for most of the trip we got caught in some really wet, misty weather. This is far from a show-stopper though, it just creates a different shooting environment and you have to get on with it. I think the second shot above is a very good example of this where the misty light forced a hi-key look and I think it worked rather well.


Before we look at how the OMD and M43 lenses worked in this environment a quick word about shooting these patterns from a technique and style perspective. Photography is hugely popular in China and there is a kind of style that is expected when shooting these scenes. For example, to the Chinese mind the landscape and nature should be large and any humans small by comparison. The conventional idea is to shoot down from on high, frame your subject entering from the bottom left and work to get the pattern interesting through either using the poles, sandbanks or waves. As I have written before in a previous blog, I think these location cliche shots are incredibly important but you should try to put your own unique take on it whether that be by varying the rules a little or using the light differently. Because of the poor weather I was forced to use a high key look and its worth mentioning here that its very easy to underexpose these so keep the exposures up to the right and don't be afraid to use a stop or more of positive compensation. On the shooting technique for these I didn't use a tripod but instead used the pistol grip I showed in the last post and this gave me an incredibly stable hold on the OMD which was mounted with the Lumix 45-200mm. I found this to be a really neat, stable shooting set-up for this kind of landscape photography and can highly recommend it. All you have to do is remember to switch off the Lumix stabilization on the lens and let the OMD's marvelous in-camera stabilization do its stuff. It goes without saying that you should try to stay at sensible shutter speeds for what is a pretty healthy 400mm equivalent max zoom but I had few problems at 1/250 and lower if I was careful. I can't recommend this set up highly enough, the zoom is a cracker and I enjoyed watching my travel companions lug there pro bodies, 70-200's and tripods up to the vantage points while I had the tough little OMD and the small M43 lenses to carry :)

Here is the OMD looking rather splendid with the pistol grip and my favorite lens the 14mm F2.5 Lumix. This shot was taken with the Lumix G3 and Sigma 30mm which I took as a back-up camera and I have to say that I found its overall performance to be not in the same league as the OMD, but more on that comparison in the next post. The Sigma lens is an ok performer and pretty sharp but I didn't find it as useful overall as I thought it would be. At f2.8 it sits a bit uncomfortably between the much more able 20mm F1.7 and lovely 45mm F1.8 Olympus.

Going back to technique for a moment, its also desirable to make sure your subject doesn't overlap the darker background areas and try to show the full reflection if possible, just good compositional basics. Incidentally, I managed to download the new Adobe Lightroom4-1 beta release which has the OMD RAW convertor so I had a go at the RAW files and I have to say they looked good and stood up well to the Hi-key work although the sunset shot above didn't need so much because the light was the best we had on the trip and I set the OMD to shade white balance for that nice glow. Here's a slightly different angle so that you can get a better idea of the overall scene from the vantage point.

One thing to watch out for when shooting late in the day is to milk the scene to its last as just when the light was going I thought the shooting was over but I noticed the fisherman going to spread the nets and managed to get a nice pattern as he moved into the arrangement. This is pretty low light stuff at a long zoom and the OMD 45-200 combo handled it with ease.

Returning to the flat, diffuse light issue for a moment, I see a lot of comments about M43 that criticizes the lack of DoF. I have to say that I am totally bemused by this and have found that I have 'lost' more shots (creatively) through having too little DoF than too much. I have many shots taken with my D3 and 50 f1.4 where I have nailed the closest eye but don't like how quickly the focus falls off on the rest of the subject. Narrow DoF is without doubt a useful technique but I find that for travel use in particular there is more advantage in the M43 sensors DoF range, so far from being a drawback, and in this lower light, it is without doubt a very distinct benefit.


In any case the shallow DoF is there anyway if your technique is right as this G3 shot with the Sigma 30mm at f 2.8 shows. This isn't even that fast a lens but any more shallow DoF and the photo would have completely lost its sense.

I don't want to labour the DoF topic too much, but it is my personal view that this is simply not an issue with the OMD, a good lens and decent compositional technique will give you shallow DoF if you desire it for creative effect.


 Shooting Vertical


I noticed that my travel companions didn't shoot vertically very often and it was evident in many of the local images that I looked at that horizontal view was predominant. I think you have to be careful when shooting these natural patterns that you don't get stuck in the conventional horizontal landscape view as many of the more interesting patterns actually emerge in the vertical. As always, its simply good camera craft to change your angle and view frequently and I developed a reverse shooting technique for vertical shooting with the OMD and pistol grip. I found that by holding the pistol grip in my right hand I could get a very solid hold and trip the shutter button with my left index finger. It sounds a bit awkward but if your are using a pistol grip give it a try and see if it works for you.

I personally really like this compressed vertical look that you get when using very long telephotos. It seems to look more elegant and interesting to my eye. You can compare these two vertical shots with the ones from the same scenes in shots two and three for contrast. I don't think either view is better but I do think they are nice variations.

Finally on the subject of view and framing, don't forget to try a different crop if it fits the subject, sometimes a 16x9 crop will enhance a scene for example.

Oh, and its also worth trying some variation on the editing technique, this is very de-saturated but somehow I like it.

Pattern is Everywhere


Since we are on the theme of shooting pattern, it's not only during the location shooting that you need to be aware and its worth keeping a camera with you always on these trips. This is a real benefit of the OMD, its small, discrete, fast and easy to work with in use. The only real issues I had with it were a couple of physical niggles and I will summarize those at the end. I saw the following shot while we were waiting for our driver and caught the subject passing through the shadow pattern.

I really like this kind of shot and in many ways find this more interesting than the vantage point formula takes. Incidentally, if you are using the Lightroom release I mentioned, it doesn't complete the conversion to allow the use of plug ins so I couldn't get this shot out to Silvereffex pro where I think it would have looked great. I ended up using a Lightroom plug in downloaded free and it gives a rather nice de-saturated look. I liked the scene so much that I had our driver take a portrait of me which is intended to reflect my frustration with the Chinese internet censorship that prevented me from getting to my own blog or any of the other photo blogs that give me my daily fix :) 

Anyway, the OMD handled all of the contrasty scenes I threw at it with aplomb and there is no doubt in my mind that the sensor is a cut above the G3, it handles higher ISO better to my eyes and the RAW files seem to have more to them. There is no science to this from me but if you want to look at the detailed testing then I guess the DP Review one will satisfy you, personally I think it might be better to try one yourself or wait for more 'real world' takes from Steve and others who are more interested in how the camera works in use.


OMD For Travel Summary

Lets cut to the chase, this is an absolutely outstanding travel camera, it's weatherproofing and sealing makes it ideal for the beach, rain and humid mist that is often encountered in Asian travel situations. It is very versatile and when coupled with the excellent Lumix and Olympus lenses can cover off everything from environmental portraiture to the long range pattern shots shown in this post. I just love the above portrait of Mr Zhang Han Zhong, who is chairman of the Hui An photographic Society and an extremely nice guy.  


The OMD is also very robust and well put together, the only minor niggles I have were picked up by Robin Wong and others in early use and relate to the misting up of the EVF in damp conditions. I don't really see that there is much Olympus could do about this and don't consider it a design flaw as such, just try to keep water off it if you can and when it goes you obviously have to default to the rear screen. I found it helped to use a ziplock bag which I had to use in the rain as I didn't have the weather-sealed kit lens. It also clears pretty quickly when it gets dry. On the subject of the viewfinder, be very careful with the rubber eyecup which comes loose easily and I nearly lost it a few times. I might pop a tiny spot of glue on the corner to hold it. I also took a S$7 small 7eleven umbrella with me and the OMD handles so well that I was able to hold the brolly against my shoulder and shoot at the same time. Take a white one and it can double as a diffuser or you can even shoot a flash into or through it.


I mentioned the battery life previously and it also takes a long time to charge the battery so I fully intend to get three as soon as they are available, just be aware of this if you are intending to travel with one.


Fujian Locations

In case you are thinking of making this kind of trip, the beaches shown are at Xiao Hao, Dong Bi, Sa Jiang and Qu Di. The trip I went on was with an old friend Vicky Yeow who runs her own photo travel company vickyphotographyworkshops and I can highly recommend her. Unless you are very familiar with the area you will never find the proper vantage points or interesting shooting sites, and its also critical to go at the right time for tides and so on. On the equipment front, a long zoom is essential and you may want to consider a tripod although I found my pistol grip set up and the superb stabilization in the OMD was just fine. I would suggest that the OMD Lumix 14 & 20 primes along with the 45-200 zoom and Olympus 45 make a state of the art travel set up that can take on anything.

Well that's about it for this first post folks, I will be covering off more people orientated shots at different locations including the fascinating 'Earth buildings' in the upcoming posts and will also look more closely at the Sigma lens and some shots from the G3.


I feel I have been a bit lightweight on discussing the OMD here but I think that is simply down to the fact that it is such a good travel camera that there is really nothing to comment on other than how well it does the job when coupled with the right lenses.


I hope the somewhat unusual shooting of the pattern scenes with it have been of some interest and as ever I look forward to any comments or questions that you may have.


Until next time, safe traveling.


Colin

Olympus OMD - First Day in Singapore

I got a very big surprise yesterday when the guys at Artworkfoto in Singapore contacted me to say they had OMD's in stock !!! I jumped at the chance and bought the two lens kit (they didn't have the new 12-50 one) as I wanted a longer zoom for the trip to China and the 40-150 would fit the bill nicely. I have slightly mixed feelings about this as I will never use the 14-42 and to be perfectly frank found the build quality to be way, way bellow the Lumix lenses that I have. Oh well, too late now. I will use the 40-150 for the upcoming China trip but can't see it standing up to the rigors of prolonged travel use. Having said that, the OMD in black is to my eyes absolutely gorgeous. It has a real quality feel to it and appears to be very well put together and I am so glad to see Olympus paying homage to the stunning designs of the 70's OM's.


I didn't have a choice and I know many people are favoring the silver one but to me the black one has the killer looks. My instant reaction on getting it home was to stick on the Zuiko 50mm F1.8 and try it out and I think this combo not only looks great but delivers lovely dreamy results, definitely one for a future portrait session :)

Back to my thoughts on the camera. I am not a camera reviewer per se and will leave that to guys like Steve Huff and Kirk Tuck who are better at that than me. All I wanted to do here was show some early shots and share my thoughts on it as a travel camera. This post will focus on my views of the handling and usability of the camera and I will leave the technical and image quality tests to other better qualified testers. Please also bear in mind here that I couldn't open RAW files in Lightroom so I just edited the jpg's in Snapseed which I find great for simple stuff anyway. I have been looking a lot recently at the work of fashion photographers and had an opportunity to try the OMD with a model so I jumped at the chance. I immediately took a liking to the handling and the EVF which is nice to use. I personally use exposure compensation continually and I was delighted to find it on the front dial near the shutter so that I could find and use it with the camera to my eye. I have never overly concerned myself with camera metering accuracy preferring instead to use my eye and compensate or, as I have been doing more and more recently, bracketing the exposures by one stop over a set of three. I do think this is very important with smaller cameras as you don't want to be too far underexposed if it can be avoided.

It was pouring rain in Singapore so I decided to try some  still life shots using the 45 mm f2.8 Lumix macro. I was delighted with the OMD rear screen and touch focus, this for me is a major boon for this type of shooting. I simply set up the OMD and 45 on a tripod and configured a 2 second timer delay, touched the screen on the focus point and a few seconds later I had the shot. I know this is dreadfully cliched but I couldn't help but pay homage to the film OM's and a couple of very nice books that I have been reading lately.

Please remember my comment at the start, this review is not about the image quality, I am simply sharing my early thoughts on the use of the camera. Having said that, with some simple Snapseed editing I got some pleasing results.

 
Again, I apologize for the cliche, I am sure we will all get sick of these soon but it did look rather lovely and that tasty little 50 mm Zuiko will be working its butt off shortly on the OMD.

The good news is that I was finding this very simple and after a few shots the camera was out of the way and I got more focused on the composition and look of the shot. I have mentioned this previously when I re-visited the GF1 but I can't stress strongly enough how important it is to know how you shoot and know your camera intimately for the control you need for your style. this was a mojor objective for me today, I know how I like to shoot and I had to get to grips quickly with the focusing (manual for the Zuiko's), bracketing for exposure and fast exposure compensation. Once I get these things nailed I can get on with the look and composition and forget the camera settings.

I tried a few different presets in Snapseed and really liked the B&W one above. I am not usually a fan of the Snapseed B&W but this seems to have come out fine. Finally, here's a color shot using my other favorite read of the moment.

At last the weather picked up and I headed off to my favorite shooting location in Singapore - Marina Bay. I just love the afternoon light there and I stuck the Lumix 14 and 20 lenses into the bag and off I went.

Here are the first two shots which both benefited from the 46 mm polarizer which, as I have mentioned previously, fits both the 14 & 20 Limix lenses, this is a huge benefit and one that is often overlooked. Like many of the shots I took at Marina Bay these have had a tweak in Snapseed 'dramatone' filter. Somehow I felt it worked really nicely for the contrasty shots at the Bay.

The one above was taken low and again the benefit of being able to fold out the screen and focus by touch point was significant in making the shot. This is a great feature of mirrorless cameras like the sony Nex's and some of the Lumix models and I have to say that I pretty much consider this essential in a modern camera, it really does make a difference as we shall see with my late afternoon shots.

I am no fan at all of many of the options in the OMD menus but couldn't level this criticism at Olympus alone. They simply clutter though and all of the pointless art filters and so on are better managed in simple apps like Snapseed which offer more flexibility. I am a bit of a fan of the Snapseed drama tone for example and found it more subtle and flexible than the OMD efforts, Similarly with the above grainy B&W shot. Here are another two using the same effects and I really liked the EVF in the OMD, I read that its not as good as the Sony NEX 7 one but it is very usable and I found that it was preferable to disable the eye sensor trigger and leave it on either the EVF or the screen and manually switching depending on what I was doing.

I was trying so hard to close the lens down to maximize the sunburst that I got surprised by this cyclist and the shutter speed is a shade too slow but I liked the shot anyway and I found the focusing and speed of the OMD to be spot on for this kind of street work, the motion blur on the subject was all my fault.

As the sun started to go down I found myself relying more and more on the screen and touch focusing. This allowed me to get some interesting low angle shots of the late afternoon walkers.

This sequence of shots were taken with the OMD on the ground and pre-focused on where I thought the feet were going to be. Much as I liked the subtlety of color above, I found drawn to the drama tone in Snapseed when I was looking at these as it really brought out the boardwalk nicely.

I quickly found that people don't really take so much notice of little cams like this and was able to sit for ages capturing a wide variety of contrasting shots.

I know that effects like 'drama tone' become tiresome very quickly but as this was a fun shoot and more about me learning to use the OMD than anything else I shot away until the sun went down.

 Just in case anyone is thinking that I have gone all voyeuristic, I also found that it was extraordinary the variety of different subjects that I shot and everything from cycles and scooters whizzed into the sunset view. I also get a sense from using the jpg files that they were easy to work with and I have high expectations of the RAW files when I get the Lightroom update. 

I suspect we will all have 'drama tone' overdose by now so here is a nice simple shot taken as the sun descended behind the Fullarton Hotel and the new LV store. This was hand held and it looks like Olympus's grand claims for the in camera stabilization look justified and this will be awesome for using with the old Zuiko lenses.

Time to wrap up then with some early thoughts on the camera.


Despite some early irritations with the menu system I have gotten to grips with it quite quickly. I still feel that Lumix spoiled us with the GF1 and its usability, but the OMD comes reasonably close and in some respects the dual dials work better giving really fast control over vital exposure compensation and aperture variation. The flip out screen is superb and the touch screen focusing brilliant, this is a real step forward for varied angle shooting and works really well. I didn't find the limited articulation of the screen limiting at all but I think it might disturb some users who want vertical movement as well.  The stabilization works well and I am a big fan of in-camera type as opposed to the lens version. This allows for more effective use of legacy lenses for example and once I got to grips with the magnification manual focus assist, I found that my Zuiko 50 mm f1.8 had a new lease of life. I also have a nice 135 that became unusably long on the GF1 and I look forward to trying it out. My real disappointment with the kit so far is with the lenses which I am sure will be adequate optical performers but they simply don't look strong enough for prolonged travel use.


It will be interesting to see how the image quality reviews but I have to say that for my purposes as a travel cam this thing looks perfect and its rugged build and out and out usability have me itching to get it on the road for a more thorough workout.


I hope you enjoyed this somewhat lightweight first look at a very interesting camera and I know the cliched OM shots are a bit stiff and the 'drama tome' overused but please look on it as what it was - a learning experience for me in using the camera the way I want and a bit of fun into the bargain.

Here's a nice moody street shot to finish and I think this was with the lovely 50mm Zuiko. Until next time, safe traveling and if you are looking for a new travel cam don't hesitate on the OMD its a cracking camera, just don't buy the two lens kit :)


Cheers,


Colin